Xbox Series S/X Controller Randomly Disconnecting via Bluetooth (ACL Packet Error)

[brunogabriel]

Hello everyone,

I’m encountering a persistent issue with my Xbox Series S/X controller randomly disconnecting via Bluetooth during gameplay on Manjaro. The disconnection is intermittent but frequent enough to severely disrupt gameplay.

System and Hardware Details

• Kernel: 6.12.48-1-MANJARO

• Bluetooth Adapter: Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Bluetooth 5.3 Radio (ID 0bda:a729)

• Controller: Xbox Wireless Controller (Series S/X)

The Error Log

Diagnostics run via journalctl -f | grep -i bluetooth consistently show the following specific error right before the disconnection, indicating a protocol synchronization loss:

Bluetooth: hci0: ACL packet for unknown connection handle 16

Suggestions? Thanks!

[kisun]

hello @brunogabriel,

does the controller worked before on manjaro or an other disto?

If yes, I suggest to try another kernel.

I bought such a controller some months ago and it also disconnects and reconnects all the time. With usb cable it worked flawless.

What helped on my side was plugging the controller into a windows machine and run a firmware update.

… good luck …

[brunogabriel]

Hey, @kisun thanks for sharing, yes, the controller is updated, i did last week, same as you told me usb cable works perfectly, which kernel are you using?

[kisun]

At the moment I use 6.16. But its not an LTS-Kernel so if it works you have to take a look if its got EOL in some months and install a newer on.

[Wollie]

@kisun, Linux 6.16 has already removed from testing and unstable branch, I would recommend to change to another kernel, like 6.12 (LTS).

[brunogabriel]

@Wollie I tried 6.12 but the problem remains

@kisun
Tried 6.16 but after some minutes happened again, rollback to LTS

I’ll try this solution:

AUR (en) - rtl8761b-firmware

[soundofthunder]

Be sure to let us know if it worked for you (or if it didn’t).

Regards.

[brunogabriel]

i dit it different, and so far it’s working. I couldn’t fully reproduce the issue, but it’s probably the same idea as the AUR package…the steps I followed were based on this link: (https://gist.github.com/peteristhegreat/b48da772167f86f43decbd34edbd0849)

I downloaded this file:
https://catalog.s.download.windowsupdate.com/d/msdownload/update/driver/drvs/2024/04/c1f14a17-4aed-40ff-85cb-7710d0244f42_4433154fbd9a4a8173ee994d24ee7eb640714562.cab

Then I used the CRC32 suggested in the gist with the correct file name and compressed it using xz:

xz -C crc32 rtl8761b_mp_chip_bt40_fw_asic_rom_patch_new.dat

Also create the override directory for the update:

sudo mkdir -p /lib/firmware/updates/rtl_bt

Moved new file and reboot

sudo cp rtl8761b_mp_chip_bt40_fw_asic_rom_patch_new.dat.xz \
  /lib/firmware/updates/rtl_bt/rtl8761bu_fw.bin.xz

I’m still testing for now, but I’ll let you know if everything works fine (maybe after play a day)

Thanks for the help, everyone!